Category Archives: Michel Foucault

Stuart Elden, ‘Editing Georges Dumézil’s Mitra-Varuna’, Berfrois, December 2022

Update September 2025: the Berfrois site is now closed and the archive has been removed. My piece can now be found here. I have a short piece at Berfrois, ‘Editing Georges Dumézil’s Mitra-Varuna‘. Sadly Berfrois is closing, so I want … Continue reading

Posted in Ernst Kantorowicz, Georges Dumézil, Immanuel Kant, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Some bibliographical questions about Roland Barthes [with some answers]

Some bibliographical questions about Roland Barthes. Any answers much appreciated – and with the first three will hopefully interesting to others; the final one is more a remark (or, as the cliché goes, more of a comment than a question). … Continue reading

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Georges Bataille, Ludwig Binswanger, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Books received – Dumézil, Bejan, Leucate, Basso, Koerner, Malpas

A copy of Georges Dumézil, Heur et Malheur du guerrier; Cristina Bejan, Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania: The Criterion Association; Aristide Leucate’s recent short study of Dumézil; Elisabetta Basso, Young Foucault: The Lille Manuscripts on Psychopathology, Phenomenology, and Anthropology, 1952–1955; E.F.K. … Continue reading

Posted in Ferdinand de Saussure, Georges Dumézil, Jeff Malpas, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade | Leave a comment

Foucault on the radio, 1975 – a different, edited translation of an interesting interview

In 1975, Foucault was interviewed by Jacques Chancel on the radio. It is reprinted in Dits et écrits as text 161, “Radioscopie de Michel Foucault”. The French text is here and the recording here. Comparing the transcription and the recording … Continue reading

Posted in Michel Foucault | 1 Comment

Indo-European thought project update 7: Working on Dumézil’s teaching, a few research resources, and some archival work in Paris

I’ve made some progress with the Indo-European project over the past few weeks. Not as much as I’d hoped, and it feels a bit unsystematic at this point, but early work is often like that. This has included a couple … Continue reading

Posted in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Foucault | 1 Comment

Parts of Georges Bataille’s library for sale (and a fascinating downloadable catalogue and inventaire)

Parts of Georges Bataille’s library are for sale – story here. As you’d expect, things are rather expensive… A catalogue is available to buy – La bibliothèque de Georges Bataille – and to download as pdf here. petit in-4, broché, … Continue reading

Posted in Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges Bataille, Georges Dumézil, Henri Lefebvre, Jacques Lacan, Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Pierre Klossowski | 3 Comments

Foucault’s seminars at the Collège de France – a list of their pre-announced titles

All of Foucault’s lecture courses at the Collège de France have been published and translated into English. Thirteen courses were delivered over a fourteen-year period from 1970-84 – Foucault took 1976-77 as a sabbatical year. A detailed page about his … Continue reading

Posted in Foucault's Last Decade, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Michel Foucault | 2 Comments

Two reviews of The Early Foucault (Polity, 2021) by Colin Koopman and Jasper Friedrich – and a note on Heidegger

There are two recent reviews of The Early Foucault by Colin Koopman at The Review of Politics (requires subscription) and Jasper Friedrich at Foucault Studies (open access). They are generous and appreciative, though not uncritical. I’m grateful to both for taking the time to … Continue reading

Posted in Canguilhem (book), Foucault's Last Decade, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Georges Canguilhem, Gilles Deleuze, Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Binswanger, Mapping the Present, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Foucault, The Early Foucault | 2 Comments

A 1970 French interdisciplinary seminar on structuralism, attended by Foucault, Canguilhem, Bourdieu, Serres, Thom et. al., its published traces and a request for help

This is a short account of an interesting event and a rather specialist request for help. In the late 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s the Institut collégial européen organised a series of events, most of which were reported in their annual … Continue reading

Posted in Clémence Ramnoux, Georges Canguilhem, Georges Dumézil, Michel Foucault, Michel Serres, Roland Barthes | 4 Comments

Indo-European thought project update 6: beginning the Leverhulme fellowship, my self-imposed guidelines for writing and time-discipline, and some summer cycling and writing

I’m in the incredibly privileged position of beginning a Leverhulme major research fellowship this week, to work on the Indo-European thought in Twentieth-Century France project. As a note to myself, I’m going to try to work with the guidelines I set myself seven years … Continue reading

Posted in Cycling, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Shakespearean Territories, Uncategorized, William Shakespeare, Writing | Leave a comment